Review of Lee Mims’ Trusting Viktor…
(Lee Mims, Trusting Viktor, Midnight Ink, 2014, B00HNEPEZC)
[Note from Steve: The author has agreed to do an interview. Readers can learn more about her and her writing life. Coming soon!]
This novel is the kind I love to read and write—here you have a pulsating thriller. But the book is also a two-fer, with mystery and suspense dominating the thriller elements. Whatever you call the genre, it is an interesting and exciting read.
The background for this story can be found in real-life exploration and exploitation of natural gas deposits. The protagonist, geologist Cleo Cooper, is a woman with two grown kids and an ex who isn’t quite sure he made the right choice in ending their marriage. Cooper’s on-off-on-again flings with a Russian hunk, a graduate geology student studying in the U.S. (and the Viktor of the title), seem disconnected with a series of incidents where the author offers many misdirects about what is going on. By writing in the first person, Ms. Mims slowly peels off the layers of a rather rotten onion that involves WWII deep ocean derelicts. The protagonist’s discovery mission is what makes this story a classic and entertaining mystery.
I found it interesting to compare Cooper’s management of the confrontations with the story’s bumbling detectives and their own interview techniques. The former’s control of body language is a bit too professional, for example, more reminiscent of a true detective or FBI agent. I would have preferred to even things out. Most scientists wouldn’t have Cooper’s sleuthing skills, and most detectives would possess more.
Although plotting wins here, all the mechanics of good genre fiction writing are also present. Action and romance are too, the former with visual power and the latter with cougar lust, but just enough to build the mystery and suspense. The writing is well balanced throughout. The author maintained my attention from beginning to end.
There seems a bit of rush toward the climax and the denouement isn’t quite satisfying—first person narrative often suffers from that (that’s why I often mix first and third in my own writing). I guessed the artifacts discussed in the book were real, but that wasn’t confirmed until I read the author’s notes, for example. Who Viktor really was remains somewhat of a mystery too. This is a wee bit of nitpicking; all aspects of a mystery don’t have to be solved nowadays, and Christie’s ubiquitous denouement scenes have been stereotyped with those mystery comic theaters.
Coupled with the intimate knowledge about exploration and drilling techniques on an off-shore deep water platform that she weaves into her story in just the right amounts, I found this novel informative as well as entertaining and exciting. You will too.
[Note: A copy of this ebook was provided in exchange for an honest review.]
In libris libertas….
